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 Crime In New Zealand

February 2002

 

Eight homicides in less than a week. What's happening?

Politicians tell us what they believe we want to hear. Some say we can solve this problem by:

  • Locking up the offenders and throwing away the key -

While this may satisfy our desire to punish those responsible, it does nothing to stop those likely to offend next week.

Others say:

  • We can solve this problem by directing more money to those most likely to offend -

While well meaning, the treatment they are proposing is the very cause of the disease that afflicts these people in the first place.

What we need to understand is that the only moral or ethical policy is one that works, other policies are fallacies and in the case of welfare and crime, expensive, dangerous and deeply damaging lies as well.

Most problems of this nature require a solution that involves two elements:

  • Policies to solve or dramatically reduce the problem over time.

  • Policies to deal with the transitional problems that will continue to exist for some time because of past policies.

We need to understand the reasons why violent crime has increased so dramatically in New Zealand over the past 20 years before we can come up with a solution.

The family is the source of most of New Zealand's violent crime.

The challenge:

If we are serious about solving the crime problem, let us stop blaming race and poverty and start focusing on building the family and increasing personal responsibility.

When their parents neglect children they resort to aggressive behaviour to get attention. Then they find they only get along with other aggressive children.

The typical childhood of a criminal offender looks like this:

Stage 1

  • When the child is born the father has already left the mother.

  • The child never bonds with the mother and childcare changes frequently.

  • The adults in the child's life frequently quarrel violently. The child is deprived of affection.

  • The child is difficult to handle at school and is rejected by other children.

  • The child and like-minded peers are slower at school, resulting in lower expectations of themselves.

  • The child is likely to suffer from ailments such as glue ear, which seriously impede schooling.

  • The social services the child encounters have very low expectations - and so does the family.

Stage 2

The typical youth of a criminal offender goes like this

  • By ten or eleven the child is well established in a number of bad ways.

  • By fifteen or sixteen the boy will engage in criminal behaviour.

  • The earlier he committed has first criminal act the longer he will lead a life of crime.

  • The girls he knows are on a similar course.

  • Many of the girls have run away from home.

  • Many in the group use drugs.

  • Violence is the norm among his group of friends.

  • The girls often get involved in prostitution while the boys join criminal gangs.

  • Many join in to secure the comfort and protection in gangs.

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